The Dow recently fell 110 points, on track for its seventh drop in the past eight trading days. The S&P 500 reversed earlier gains and was down 0.7% at 1916. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fared the worst, down almost 1% at 4329.

But a strong manufacturing report at 10 a.m. — manufacturing activity accelerated to its highest level in more than three years — reignited the debate over whether the Federal Reserve should raise interest rates sooner than anticipated. The market is preparing for a rate increase sometime in the middle of next year, but two Fed policy hawks — Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed and Charles Plosser of the Philadelphia Fed — made the case Friday morning to speed up that timetable.

The stronger-than-expected manufacturing data fueled another leg lower for U.S. stocks.

The Dow is down almost 4% from its record high hit two weeks ago and on Thursday slumped into negative territory for the year.

“The market is modestly oversold, but we’re not ready to make the tradeable bottom call,” said Chris Verrone, head of technical analysis at Strategas Research Partners in New York. He noted that August is historically a difficult month of the year for stocks. “At the moment, we would be more inclined to fade a near-term bounce,” he wrote Friday morning before the jobs report.

As we noted in today’s Morning MoneyBeat, investors have repeatedly been willing to buy the dips at almost any chance they get this year. When the Dow fell more than 300 points in February, it only needed four trading days to recover those losses and move higher. And in eight of the previous nine instances the Dow dropped by at least 1% in a given day, the blue-chip average regained those losses and traded higher within one month’s time.

That pattern isn’t lost on Mr. Verrone, even though he sees more weakness ahead.

“We’re still ultimately in the ‘buy the dip’ camp, but it may take lower prices first,” he said. “Next S&P 500 support is in the 1900-1910 range, with the upward sloping 200-day average near 1860.”